For 2016, all Indiana students and their families now have access to over 5,000 (and counting) e-books via myON Books. This is part of the Indiana Department of Education’s Hoosier Family of Readers initiative. All of the information you need can be found at IDOE’s website, but basically here’s how it works: Sign in with the information provided on IDOE’s site (you do not need to give any personal information). […]

Thank you to Indiana Family of Farmers for sponsoring this post. Thank you to Kim Galeaz for sharing your wisdom in the grocery store and thank you to Liz Kelsay for being my shopping buddy. I have always tried to be a frugal shopper. When my husband and I first got married, I turned our apartment’s linen closet into a pantry so I could buy more foods in bulk. But, […]

Thank you to Indiana Family of Farmers for sponsoring this post, and Liz and the entire crew of Kelsay Farms for your hospitality! The past few days have been HOT, which is an unwelcome temperature once September hits. I don’t know why I always expect September to be cool. My Big Boy was born in mid-September of 2005, and I can guarantee you that spending my last couple of pregnant […]

In our house, we love to celebrate. Holidays are kind of my thing. And I especially love celebrating the smaller holidays. Give me Dr. Seuss’ birthday or Presidents Day over Thanksgiving any time. But my very favorite of all the days? Pi Day. Pi Day is a nerd’s dream. While I try to claim myself as a liberal arts person, the fact is me + numbers = true love. We […]

This blog post has been fifteen years in the making. Many years ago, I found a lemon cookie recipe in the newspaper. It was soft, lemony, and frosted. AND DELICIOUS. I had never had a lemon cookie before that (yes, I lived a sheltered life). Then, within a few years, I lost it. It must have been lost in a move, I don’t know. A few years later I visited […]

Thanksgiving is coming, and there are SO MANY lessons we can use to teach our children about the holiday. I find the history of Thanksgiving to be really heavy, so I try to throw in some funny stuff in between the discussions on religious freedom, Native American relations, all the hard months that led to this celebration, etc. Today we revived an old Thanksgiving favorite, Turkey Trouble. This cute, simple […]

Since today is May the fourth, I thought I would share my latest project. Please know it’s still very much in the baby stages and might change a lot before fall, but here’s the basic idea… In our homeschool, we do things a bit- umm- eclectically? I recently did some soul-searching and made a list of the things I want my children to get out of their education. My list […]

The following is a reenactment of a recent drive home from Target. Big Boy (8): How much are those little packs with the Lego minifigure in it? Me: About $3. BB: What?! Three dollars?! For ONE minifigure?! Me: Yep. What do you think about that price? BB: I think I understand why you don’t buy me Legos more often! ******** When Big Boy was a baby, I decided to go […]

About a month ago, I started my hunt for all the educational resources available to homeschoolers.  Mostly this consists of me going to the website of every single museum I can think of and clicking on their “education” page, then emailing somebody to ask if homeschoolers can use that too.  The first one I took advantage of was the Indianapolis Zoo’s Education Kits. Here’s how it works: First, go to […]